The community version 3.2r upward is using an additional parameter in the <tomcat_home>/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties file.
#
# External locations
#————-
ooo.exe=<path to your ooo dir>/OpenOffice.org 3/program/soffice
ooo.user=<tomcat_home>/<mysql data dir>/oouser
that would by default be
ooo.user=<tomcat_home>/alf_data/oouser
————-
Sometimes you get the error msg you mentioned during startup but while the rest of the alfresco solutions comes up by the end of the startup the system tries to establish a connection again and normally succeeds.
It works fine this way on MS Windows and Linux / Unix - don't know about it reg. MacOS.
fpp